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Ep. 244: This is 33. Choosing Yourself When You’re Done Playing Small
If you’re honest, money probably isn’t the only thing that feels heavy.
For many heart-centered entrepreneurs, the stress around money isn’t coming from a lack of discipline, knowledge, or effort. It comes from years of hiding, shrinking, and quietly rejecting yourself in order to feel safe. Playing small feels protective — until it becomes exhausting. And no amount of budgeting, strategy, or mindset work can override a nervous system that doesn’t feel secure enough to be seen.
This episode is a reflection on that deeper layer. On what it looks like to choose yourself after years of survival mode. On the ways shame, guilt, and self-rejection quietly shape your relationship with money — often without you realizing it. And on why real change doesn’t come from pushing harder, but from creating enough internal safety to stop hiding.
In this conversation, I’m sharing lived lessons from my own journey — not as a how-to, but as an invitation. An invitation to soften, to tell the truth, and to consider that you might not be behind at all. You may simply be becoming the version of yourself who no longer abandons herself to feel safe.
Below is the full podcast episode transcript, shared for those who prefer to read or revisit the words at their own pace.
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What follows is the full transcript of this episode. As you read, notice what lands in your body, especially the moments that bring relief, tenderness, or resistance. The heart of this conversation is a simple but powerful shift: money doesn’t change when you push harder, it changes when you feel safe enough to stop hiding. You may find yourself reflecting on where you’ve been rejecting yourself and what it might look like to choose yourself with more compassion instead.
Welcome to Money Simplified: A Grounded Space for Entrepreneurs and Money
Foreign. This is Money Simplified, the podcast where I help female entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable with money. Money is more than just budgeting and P Ls, and we’re going to take you through all of it here.
We blend proven financial strategy with mindset work and energetic alignment so you can create unstoppable finances, build an unstoppable business, and truly enjoy your unstoppable life. It’s time to take my wisdom, my expertise to help you simplify money and go beyond the numbers.
I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
This Is 33: A Personal Reflection and Behind-the-Scenes Episode
Hey. Today is going to be a little bit different, a little bit more cozy. This is podcast only, it’s not going on YouTube.
Today is my 33rd birthday. It’s an angel number, a symbol of alignment. And today I kind of want to take you a little bit behind the scenes.
This is partly reading from copy that I have on the birthday sales page—which I’m going to explain more in a second—and also partly reading from a post that I just shared on my Facebook profile (find the link at https://aimeecerka.com). I haven’t decided if I’m trying to put it in my Instagram stories or not, but today I’m celebrating 33 years and choosing myself fully.
Choosing Yourself After Years of Playing Small
For years, I played small. I hid my age, my story, my light.
I told myself that I was working hard, but energetically, I was shrinking. Because if I stayed small, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much when I wasn’t chosen. Or maybe I could reject myself first before anyone else could.
Two years ago, I left an abusive marriage, and in doing that, I chose myself.
The woman who stayed in that relationship was the same woman who hid her age, dimmed her light, and rejected herself before anybody else could. But the woman I am today—celebrating 33—I’m done hiding.
I’m stepping into my full, unashamed power. I’m celebrating the growth, the beauty, and the transformation that I’ve had because I might be only 33, as some might think, but there’s been so much growth and transformation and wisdom that really is compounded beyond that time.
I’m inviting you to do the same.
A Birthday Invitation to Stop Hiding and Reclaim Your Power
For my birthday, I am opening up some of the most powerful ways to work with me and bonuses that are gonna honor this moment of reclamation and stepping into my full power.
This isn’t just a sale. It’s an invitation for you to stop playing small, to stop hiding, and to step into your full power with me by your side.
We’ve talked about several times that money isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about safety. It’s about the patterns you’ve been running, hiding, avoiding, rejecting yourself.
You’re in survival mode, and you’re carrying shame that you were never meant to.
Why Real Transformation Requires Safety, Not Force
That transformation doesn’t happen when you force yourself through it. Another budgeting app or spreadsheet or program—it’s you gotta stop white-knuckling to get there.
The transformation happens when you feel safe enough to stop hiding, when you have the support, when someone sees you and says, you’re not broken. Let me walk with you.
You’ll see on the sales page there are six offers that I have put out here. Some of them are absolutely no-brainers.
Money Clarity Audit, Money Mastery Academy, and the Unstoppable Experience. If you purchase one of those, you get three Voxer days with me—a $333 value.
The Money Clarity Audit is only $44. So like you’re getting what is that, like an eight time return.
But if you’re not ready for one of those programs, I’ve got three DIY courses that I have included also that get three months of Execution Lab.
Budgeting Simplified, which is the personal budget, Prosperity Simplified, which is the business budget but also includes Budgeting Simplified. Then Bookkeeping Simplified—which is the pre-sale lock-in, the founding member pricing. That program drops in March.
You can find more at https://aimeecerka.com/birthday-sale
Lessons Learned Through Lived Experience, Not Theory
Now take a second. I’m going to settle in and I’m going to share with you this post that I wrote because I put together and reflected on some of the biggest truths that I’ve learned. Not just intellectually, but through lived experience.
Shame and guilt take us out far more than the actual choices do.
The timing is always perfect, even if it doesn’t seem that way in the moment.
Feminine energy is not weakness. If anything, it takes more strength.
Trusting Your Body, Intuition, and Inner Knowing
You don’t tolerate someone speaking to you in a way that you haven’t first spoken to yourself.
Security starts in your nervous system, regardless of what’s in your bank account.
Life is so much more magical, filled with bliss when you anchor into gratitude and notice the blessings and the little things, like enjoying your morning protein shake like I do every morning now, almost every morning.
Worth, Hustle, and the Permission to Receive
When you can acknowledge someone else’s belief not as truth, but as their truth, far less bothers you.
My staying power makes the next level of success inevitable.
You’re limited by what you believe is possible for you.
I took myself out of so many rooms and spaces to protect myself from the possibility of pain.
Discipline without self trust becomes self betrayal.
Allowing What You’ve Asked For to Arrive
My body knows the truth. Some would call this my body keeps the score. But the truth indicates that the past score and intuition about what’s ahead—conditioning or little T trauma, whatever you want to call it—it isn’t about what actually happened, it’s about what you believed happened.
The most magnetic thing you can do is see yourself.
My worth was never in question. Only my belief in it was.
You have to play to win, even when you have something to lose.
Hustle culture and entrepreneurship have entangled your worth. Really, conditioning should be in there too.
You are worthy to receive without the hustle and without having to overwork.
Rest, Self-Care, and Sustainable Energy
We put blinders on and don’t see how much of what we asked for is arriving. It’s just showing up in a way that we didn’t expect.
We’re not creating a life without fear, stress or worry. We’re learning to hold the uncertainty. We’re creating a life that we’re in self trust. We’re holding the fear and the rest.
Taking care of myself and my body is far more powerful than pushing myself to the point of exhaustion or frustration.
We often don’t follow things through to the end because we can’t sit with the idea that we might have failed. The ending—like a missed New Year’s resolution.
Parenting, Choice, and Respecting Different Paths
Parenting in this generation requires practical tools for the online world and the groundedness to have calm, wise conversations.
As a side note, Bark has been the best, most practical tool I found.
I’ve been called to homeschool and choose to be the biggest influence in my kids lives. Not because it’s easier, but because it’s right for us.
But my calling is mine. There’s no judgment for you and your choice for your family.
Faith, Listening, and Responding With Compassion
I serve a God who still delivers miracles, but I have to be listening.
One of the most powerful ones that I think of—remember—is how often I heard “I’m safe with you.” In that time frame a little over two years ago, right before I made that choice, that reassurance was there. I just had to be listening.
The deeper I understand how differently people are wired, the easier it is to respond with compassion instead of taking things personally.
I’m actively loving and using tools like personality work and human design.
Identity, Meaning, and Becoming Who You Already Are
Nothing has any meaning except the meaning I’ve given it.
The version of me who felt behind was still becoming everything I wanted and needed to be. I’m already that person.
Personal responsibility is powerful.
I’ve survived things that felt like they’d break me, and that matters more than I give myself credit for.
The way I allow myself to be treated by myself and others is giving my children a blueprint to follow.
I spent years defining myself by my roles before ever asking who I was underneath those lenses.
Asking questions is one of the most powerful practices you can develop.
Emotional Awareness as a Path to Self-Trust
When frustration, guilt, shame, anger—really any of the big emotions—I ask myself, what am I trying to validate right now?
Because that answer usually tells me what’s really going on.
I’m so grateful for the version of me who learned these lessons, for who I am today, and who I’ll become over the next year.
This is 33.
If one of these resonated, I would love for you to share with me—which one? Send me an email via https://aimeecerka.com, or DM me on Instagram at @AimeeCerka. I would love to hear.
Of course, I’m inviting you to stop hiding, to stop playing small, to step into your full power and let me support you as you do.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be ready. You just have to choose.
Choosing Yourself From Here
So what would it look like for you to choose yourself?
I’ll be here when you’re ready.
Sending you so much love.
We’ll see you next time.
Bye for now.
